It’s Show Time

A PEEK INTO THE TIME­PIECE TREATS CARTIER HAS IN STORE THIS MONTH AT WATCHES & WON­DERS

Eigh­teen new watches, two in-house move­ments, five unique pieces of high jew­ellery and a mys­tery clock are among the ex­clu­sive cre­ations that Cartier is re­veal­ing this month at the sec­ond edi­tion of Watches & Won­ders, the an­nual haute hor­logerie show which runs from Septem­ber 30 to Oc­to­ber 2 at the Hong Kong Ex­hi­bi­tion and Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

This year, Cartier presents an in-house me­chan­i­cal move­ment skele­tonised in the shape of a dragon. Housed in a Pasha de Cartier case, the man­ual-wind­ing 9617CM cal­i­bre is vis­i­ble through the sap­phire crys­tal, crafted in plat­inum set with 233 di­a­monds, with a mar­quise-cut tsa­vorite for the dragon’s eye. The move­ment is en­tirely

en­graved on the back and of­fers a power re­serve of ap­prox­i­mately three days. The watch comes in a 42mm white gold case with a di­a­mond-set bezel and crown, and a choice of black al­li­ga­tor-skin strap or ar­tic­u­lated bracelet in white gold set with bril­liant-cut or baguette di­a­monds.

To em­pha­sise its high jew­ellery ex­per­tise, Cartier is also set to showcase se­cret time­pieces dis­play­ing the hours and min­utes amid an ar­ray of rare tour­ma­lines, sap­phires, emer­alds and di­a­monds. Among the unique pieces is a ban­gle with ob­sid­ian and a 19.20-carat, cush­ion-cut yel­low sap­phire, as well as a cuff bracelet with cobra mo­tif, set with di­a­monds and fancy coloured gem­stones.

Mys­tery clocks, with their to­tally trans­par­ent di­als and seem­ingly float­ing hands, are a sig­nif­i­cant part of Cartier’s his­tory. Th­ese “mir­a­cles of time­keep­ing”— as re­ferred to by French fash­ion mag­a­zine La Gazette du Bon Ton in 1925—are the re­sult of a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Louis Cartier and clock­maker Mau­rice Couët, who took in­spi­ra­tion from the clocks of famed il­lu­sion­ist Jean-eugène Robert-houdin. In those pieces, the hands are not di­rectly linked to the move­ment but are in­stead at­tached to two crys­tal discs fit­ted with ser­rated metal edges. The discs turn the hands of the clock, ac­ti­vated by the move­ment that is housed in the base of the piece. The mai­son is pre­sent­ing a new mys­tery clock with an eight­day man­ual me­chan­i­cal move­ment that uses nat­u­ral topaz in­stead of rock crys­tal for the dis­play, and is adorned with sil­ver ob­sid­ian, onyx, ru­bies and di­a­monds.